House Set To Vote on Omnibus Anti-Drug Bill

WASHINGTON--The House is expected to vote soon on an omnibus
anti-drug bill that will include new drug-education programs and
requirements that recipients of federal funds provide a drug-free
workplace.

The House measure would not, however, make drug offenders ineligible
for student aid, as proposed by some Republicans.

House consideration of the bill will follow a summer of policy
recommendations from advisory groups and political coalitions.

Weighing in most recently were the Administration's Drug Policy
Board, the White House Conference for a Drug-Free America, and a group
of Senate Democrats. Among the groups' suggestions were proposals to
cut off aid to schools and colleges not tough enough on drug users.

The House Education and Labor Committee approved its section of the
anti-drug bill in late June, after rejecting repeated bids by
Representative E. Thomas Coleman, Republican of Missouri, to attach a
student-aid provision.

His amendment, defeated on a vote of 19 to 13, would have made
anyone convicted of two drug-possession offenses or one drug-selling
charge ineligible for aid for five years.

Mr. Coleman and other conservatives have argued that the only way to
deter drug use is to make users fear the consequences. Their opponents
have noted, however, that most convicted drug offenders would be
unlikely to apply for Pell Grants, and that denying them educational
opportunity would do nothing to steer them away from crime.

Representative Augustus F. Hawkins, chairman of the Education and
Labor Committee, is among the most outspoken critics of such
proposals.

"So, you can rape and murder and still get student aid,'' the
California Democrat said at his panel's session on the drug bill.
"There is a distinction because we currently have a war on drugs and
not one on rape and murder.''

The panel's bill includes:

A new $30-million program for drug-abuse-prevention projects
targeted at youth gangs, to be administered by the Department of
Health and Human Services.

A new National Youth Sports Program, also under H.H.S., which
would provide sports instruction and drug-abuse education to
disadvantaged children.

Authorization for $30 million in grants to states to help them
develop more effective juvenile-justice programs targeted at drug
abuse.

A provision allowing drug-education funds to be used in the
development of innovative alcohol-abuse programs and related
training.

The drug-free-workplace provisions, approved in late June by the
House Government Operations Committee, would require aid recipients to
establish an anti-drug policy and to impose unspecified sanctions on
employees convicted of on-the-job drug offenses.

Federal funds could be cut off if the guidelines were not followed,
or if a "number of employees'' were convicted of violations in the
workplace.

The provision is a milder version of language that has been attached
to a host of appropriations and authorization bills by Representative
Robert S. Walker, Republican of Pennsylvania.

Contrasting Senate Proposals

These education and employment provisions, together with
law-enforcement measures approved by the Judiciary Committee, will be
incorporated into an omnibus bill by the House leadership and brought
to the floor later this summer.

The Senate has scheduled no action on a companion measure, but both
Democrats and Republicans in that chamber have unveiled proposals.

The Republican plan, echoes of which were found in the
recommendations made by the Administration's Drug Policy Board, calls
for such stiff measures as the denial of drivers' licenses to drug
offenders, widespread random drug testing, and the restriction of
drug-education funding to schools with tough suspension and expulsion
policies.

In contrast, the nucleus of a plan offered by a Democratic work
group consists of aiming 60 percent of drug-related funds at education
and treatment programs and increasing federal spending on the problem
by $3 billion a year.

School Funds Linked to Results

The White House Conference for a Drug Free America concluded that
the continuation of federal aid for school-based drug education should
be linked to measurable decreases in student drug and alcohol use.

"School-based prevention programs that cannot demonstrate reduction
of drug and alcohol use should be modified, or their funding should be
discontinued,'' the conference recommended.

The proposal was among a number of controversial education measures
endorsed by the panel, which was set up under the federal Anti-Drug
Abuse Act of 1986.

The conference report urged school officials to screen prospective
employees for drug use before hiring them and called on states to make
knowledge of alcohol- and drug-related issues a requirement for teacher
certification.

It also incorporated criticisms of the quality of some
drug-education programs already in place that have been advanced by
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett.

"We found that the concept of 'responsible' drug use was an
underlying message in many education programs, leaving a tremendous
contradiction for our children to understand,'' said Lois Haight
Herrington, chairman of the panel.

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